Thoughts in Words

two equals three April 4, 2008

i dont know how to title this post .. but i know i have to set a few rules .. so there wont we that much confusion.
ok .. so i am going to talk about numbers .. and when i use the actual digit (2) .. i will be talking about the number. but when i write the word for the number (two) .. i will be talking about the word .. and not necesserily the number. i hope this helps, so lets start.

as you already noticed .. we use words to describe numbers. a number can be a representation of an observable fact, lets say you have 2 apples infront of you. but the word we choose to call the number, which describes this fact … is totaly deliberate. a nice example for this are different languages .. one = un = adin = uno = eins .. just to name a few.

its important to understand, what is real .. and what we (humans) make up.

numbers are real .. but the names we give them .. are completly deliberate. we could start calling 2 three .. and it would not change anything about the 2.
if you have 2 apples infront of you .. and you tell me “hey i have three apples infront of me” .. and i see the 2 apples .. and i know .. that three means 2 … i will nod and say .. “yes .. three apples”. the only thing that matters, is that we have decided to use the word three to describe a fact of 2.
a good example for this, is how the meaning of words changes with time. and also words themselves change. (sorry too tired, cant come up with examples)

were am i going with this? … well i am trying to establish a solid foundation here. and i really hope you completly understood everything until now .. because that was the easy part.
in case you dont feel weird, because you just realized that the world as you know it .. could be completly different, you should read the above again .. and think about it for some time. if you still dont get that weird feeling of the world falling apart, you wont truly understand what i am about to write here .. so well .. feel free to stop reading.

maybe you noticed this is in the economy category .. and maybe .. you have been wondering what language has to do with it. .. well .. i was using language as an example, simply because its linked to everything. and i probably wont even talk specificly about economy, but still make a very important argument about it.
now lets get back to the start … 2 and two .. real fact and deliberate name. this will probably be the most horrible sentence ever written: please notice that economy is a word, a word which describes certain things which have a name too, and these things describe certain other things, which also have names, and these things also describe something .. etc etc etc .. until at some point we reach the actual real facts, which we also gave names to of course.
please notice .. that all those “things” and “names” are completly made up by humans.

i have to be more specific here .. this is probably just jibberish for you. hmm. lets try this:
i give you a pen, and you give me 1 dollar. this is something, thats really happening. we could call it “selling a pen”. the exchange is real, but what words we use to describe it, is completly up to us. now if i am selling pens to many people, we can call it “my job”. please notice .. that the real fact has not changed, its stil the same .. i am just giving pens to people .. but we already labeled it “selling a pen” and “my job”. but of course this is not enough. i also have an “monthly income”, “monthly spending”, “sales numbers”, “number of customes”, etc.
now it gets a bit complicated. the monthly income for example, is the representation of the number of dollars i have gotten. i have those, they are real .. so basicly this is only describing a real fact .. right? .. nope. “i have 300 dollars” .. thats the description of a real fact. “monthly income” is already the product of the label “selling pens”. if i would not be selling pens, i would simply own 300 dollars. this is a very crucial point. a deliberate name, which is completly dependend on another deliberate name. lets drop the language thing, because right now it just doesnt make sense. lets exchange “name” for “interpretation”, because each word has a strong tie to interpretations. so a deliberate interpretation of my possessions (300 dollars) is completly dependend on the interpretation of my behavior (“selling pens”). if my actions would not be interpreted as “selling” .. there simply would never be an “income”.

gosh .. this sounds so weird .. it may crack some skulls. thats the real hard thing about it. we grow up in a world .. we live in it .. we become part of it. to suddenly talk about things we take for granted, things which are necessery to function in this world … and talk about what they are. thats not easy. but i hope i do manage to spark some understanding here.

as we all know .. income is not the end of the big chain .. we call economy at the end. there is an enourmous amount of interpretations and labels in-between. just think of the stock market ..
the bottom line is, and i am kind of jumping to the conclusion here (cause i am tired) instead of gruadually taking you there, nearly everything economy stands for .. is just made up. its a mass of deliberate names and interpretations of interpretations of interpretations ……. .

as i have already explained at the beginning, these things can be changed. – … hold that thought … – now its time to break free. i am not only talking about the names here, about language … i am talking about the interpretations and especially – i am talking about the actions which people take .. based on interpretations of names for interpretations of actions based on interpretations and names .. etc etc ..

lets try another angle:
if you talk to a lawyer, he will tell you about all those laws and what you have to do, because of those laws. but those laws have been made by humans, they can be changed.
same goes for an economist, he has been tought all those rules and methods etc … which just describe something .. which again might only be a description. all these can be changed.
most people dont see this.
a common reply i get is .. “well thats how the economy works” … a completly redundant statement. obviously it does. economy is only a description of whats happening. but we created it that way, before someone observed it – wrote everything down – and called it economy – we .. the humans .. created it. and then other people came, made deliberate interpretations, based their actions on it .. and economy got more complex. and then again people made deliberate interpretations …. created new ideas, concepts, actions, etc … which again lead to new interpretations etc etc etc. economy only describes what is actually happening. it is not something undisputable like the number 2, which we can only label differently. it is a description of things we can change. therefore, we can change how economy works! we can change what economy actually is!

i dont know a single person … which is not stuck in this single view of .. “how our economy works”. they observe all those facets, some may even acknowledge that the system is unstable and faulty by design. but they all think, thats “how it must be”. they think it is all based on hard real life facts, but what they are actually thinking of .. are just deliberate interpretations and deliberate actions.

the stock market is a joke March 22, 2008

i wont burst into a detailed rant about why the stock market is a joke .. .. yet.
but, i need to share .. what i learned today:
a monkey has been picking stocks 4 years in a row, and he has achieved better results than the major-indexes each time. this does not surprise me in any way of course, but its still hilarious .. dont you think? :P

i will supply a link, but the article is a joke. the information is hidden between paragraphs of weird nonsense.

click here -> sun-times